Reunion
by prepare4trouble
Summary: Kanan unexpectedly meets up with Janus Kasmir one night.
1. Chapter 1

Written from a prompt on tumblr;

 _"I wish you would write a fic where Kanan meets Kasmir again (with Ezra or without is up to you)"_

This actually spawned a couple of extra chapters, so I thought it had earned being posted on here. I'll update over the next two days.

* * *

"Well, well. Long time no…" the tall Kalleran man hesitated. "Sorry. I suppose I shouldn't say that, should I?"

Ezra watched him warily, his hand on his lightsaber. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Kanan too, trying to gauge his reaction so that he could back him up if necessary, but without having to take his eyes off the newcomer.

The man didn't look like much of a threat, but of course that was no reason to let their guard down. Appearances could be deceptive, sometimes deliberately so, and you couldn't trust that even the most innocent looking person wasn't planning to plant a knife in your back. And this guy definitely wasn't innocent looking.

Kanan didn't appear overly concerned though. Ezra could tell from the way he folded his arms, and his tone of voice, as well as the information that he could glean through the Force that he didn't feel threatened, but there was a wariness there, he wasn't entirely at ease.

Ezra kept his hand on the hilt of the lightsaber, but relaxed just slightly.

"You can say what you like, Kasmir," Kanan said, "you never censored yourself before, why stop now?"

"Good point," Kasmir, whoever he was, agreed. He hesitated, then sighed deeply. "So, you got yourself caught up in the Rebellion, what were you thinking? And this," he reached out and touched the lightsaber hanging from Kanan's belt. "I thought you gave this up around the time you cut that braid out of your hair. For someone who claimed not to need me anymore, you sure made a lot of stupid choices since you've been out on your own."

"Maybe," Kanan said, "From a certain point of view."

The Kalleran huffed, like he had been hoping for an argument and had been disappointed.

"Wearing that out in public though, kid. It's still risky, you know. There are still plenty of people that remember."

Ezra released his grip on his own lightsaber, deciding that the man didn't appear to be enough of a threat to warrant drawing attention to the weapon.

"Looks like it already got you into trouble," the man continued. "I'm betting that mask is covering a burn, am I right?"

Kanan sighed. "It wasn't actually this one that did it," he said, indicating his weapon with a wave of his hand.

"It was one like it, what difference does it make?"

Kanan folded his arms again and replied through gritted teeth. "Mostly, the difference is that if it was this one, that would mean I either let someone steal it, and I'm not that stupid, or I did it to myself and I'm definitely not that careless."

Kanan had let Ezra steal it once. He didn't mention that, he didn't want to interrupt. It felt as though Kanan had almost forgotten he was there, lost in the conversation with this man that had approached them in the street.

The Kalleran — Kasmir, Kanan had called him — laughed deeply. "Well, you used to be pretty clumsy, you know."

"No, that was an act. Jedi aren't clumsy, I pretended once to put them off my tail."

Ezra leaned against the wall, confused. He was going to have a lot to ask Kanan about after they got back to the Ghost.

Kasmir shook his head. "No, kid. You're thinking of that time you did it on purpose. I'm thinking of that time you tripped over your own feet and landed inside the crate we'd just unloaded."

"That was different; I'd been drinking. You got me drunk, as I recall."

Kasmir shrugged. "I was testing to make sure alcohol wouldn't loosen your tongue. Wouldn't have done to have you spilling my secrets whenever you walked into a bar." He hesitated. "Or your own secrets for that matter, especially those. But okay, maybe not clumsy then, but careless. What else would you call someone that trusted a guy like me to tell them when to stop drinking?" He laughed.

Kanan laughed at that too, loudly. "It's good to see you again, Kasmir."

Ezra watched in fascination as the two men very briefly embraced, clapped one-another on the back, and then backed away again.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened to you?" Kasmir asked. "Or are you going to leave it to my imagination?"

Kanan appeared thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head. "It's a story for another time," he said.

For a moment, Ezra thought Kasmir was going to argue, but he shrugged instead, and nodded. "So there'll be another time, then?" he asked.

"It's a surprisingly small galaxy," Kanan told him. "I'm sure we'll run into each other again. In fact, if you're going to be hanging around this planet for a few days, I'll make sure of it."

"Maybe we can get a drink," Kasmir said, "see whether you're still as impressively tight-lipped with your secrets."

Kanan nodded. "But right now, we've got some of those secrets to take care of. It really has been good to see you again, Kasmir."

Kasmir snorted in apparent amusement, and turned away. Ezra waited until he was a safe distance away, before looking back at him, and then to Kanan. "So, what was that about?" he asked.

Kanan shook his head. "That's a story for another time too," he said.

That one, Ezra got the distinct impression, he wouldn't be hearing any time soon.


	2. Chapter 2

"When you said 'another time', I didn't really think you meant the next day," Kasmir said as he pushed open the door to the local cantina and walked through. "I guess you missed me more than you let on."

Kanan followed closely behind him, and was hit by a wall of sound. The door swung closed behind him and banged against the doorframe with a loud clunk that was almost completely drowned out by the roar of the room.

It wasn't a large cantina by any standards, but it was either vastly overpopulated or had such bad acoustics that it sounded fuller than it was. Over the years, the odor of stale beer from a thousand spillages had soaked into the walls, floor and furniture. His feet stuck to the floor, which was coated with a thick layer of something that had probably been there for as long as the place had been standing.

Kasmir took a deep breath of the stale air, savoring it, then clasped Kanan on the shoulder before heading over to the bar.

"I notice you didn't tell me I was wrong," he shouted over the ambient noise. "You did miss me then?"

The bar itself was surprisingly clear of customers, the two of them slotted in between a lone Torgruta at one side and a rowdy group of humans at the other. "It had to be tonight," Kanan told him, dodging the question just slightly. He raised his voice to be heard over the general din. "I just learned we're heading out of the system for a few days first thing in the morning, and I didn't know how long you'd be sticking around."

Honestly, he'd been eager to have a proper conversation with him, one without Ezra there to overhear and quiz him over later. By rights, Kasmir should hate him, or at least harbor a healthy distrust. He had been glad to learn that that wasn't the case.

Kanan didn't quite catch Kasmir's reply, but before he could ask him to repeat it, the Kalleran had caught the attention of the bartender and ordered two drinks. "There's a table over there," Kasmir yelled. He didn't bother, or didn't think, to explain where. "Looks like it might be a better place to talk."

Kanan nodded, and taking his drink in his hand, followed Kasmir across the room to a small table in the corner. Kasmir was right, it was a little quieter there, and they would be able to talk without straining to hear every word.

As with every surface in the place, the tabletop was coated with a sticky layer. Thankfully the rickety stool Kanan sat on had been spared whatever spillage had been responsible.

"Nice place," Kasmir said appreciatively.

Kanan picked up his glass. Over the last few seconds, it had begun to sink into the layer coating the table. He pried it free. "Yeah, it's doing surprisingly well considering how hard it makes you work to drink your beer."

Kasmir laughed, loudly. The sound of it filled the room, and for a moment it was all Kanan could hear. "Maybe that's why it's so busy; all these people have been trapped here for years, stuck to their own seats!"

Kanan laughed too, and took a long sip of the slightly too warm drink. It wasn't bad. It wasn't _good_ , but that would probably have been hoping for too much.

"No mask tonight?" Kasmir asked. "Decided it's useless if I recognized you?"

Kanan shook his head. "I don't wear it as a disguise," he said. That wasn't entirely true, he just didn't wear it to disguise _himself_. "Anyway, it attracts attention, I thought it might be better to leave it off."

Kasmir hesitated, thoughtful. "Sorry to be the one to tell you this, kid, but a face like that is gonna draw attention whether you cover it up or not."

Kanan knew that, of course, and it no longer bothered him. Still, experience had taught him that one drew more attention than the other. The third alternative would have been to cover his eyes with something else, but he doubted that would have helped matters any. It wasn't like he was particularly trying to go incognito anyway, he was just trying to avoid looking _too_ interesting. A little interesting was fine.

"Doesn't bother you, does it?" he asked. "I never thought Janus Kasmir would be squeamish about a scar."

Kasmir sighed deeply. "No, I've seen much worse than that over the course of a lifetime, kid. Bothers me that it's _you_ sporting it, but that's a different question altogether."

He was right, that was a different question entirely. Kanan took a deep draught of his warm beer. He didn't want to talk about that right now, so instead he seized on something familiar, something he could use to steer the conversation back to more comfortable topics. "Don't call me 'kid', Kasmir." he said. "For one thing, it's not even true anymore."

Kasmir laughed. "So, you finally admit that it _was_ true back then?"

He had him there. Kanan shrugged. "I'll admit I might not have been _quite_ as mature as I thought I was. I've learned a lot since then."

"Yeah, haven't we all? Anyway, I see you've got a kid of your own now, don't you?"

Kanan smiled, feeling a burst of pride at the thought. "In a way," he said.

"Seems like a good kid," Kasmir told him. "Doesn't take after you at all."

Kanan pried his glass free from the table and took another drink, noting with surprise that he had somehow almost emptied it already. "He's not actually mine," he admitted.

"Could'a fooled me," Kasmir told him. He put his glass down heavily on the table, it sounded empty.

Kanan smiled again. It was a nice thought.

"Here's an idea," Kasmir said. "I can tell you don't want to talk about what happened to your eyes, so I'll give you a pass on that for now — no guarantees we won't get around to it later — if you tell me this story instead."

Kanan considered it. He didn't mind talking about his eyes, what he didn't want to do was talk Jedi, and Sith, and lightsaber battles in a busy cantina, there was no guarantee they wouldn't be overheard.

"And it's your round," Kasmir added.

Kanan tilted his own glass, measuring the remaining drink there by the weight of it, then tipped back his head and finished it in one gulp — there was no point getting half a drink behind at this early stage in the evening. "Same again?" he asked.

Kasmir pushed his glass in Kanan's direction. "Keep them coming," he said. He paused, then laughed. "Old man."

Kanan didn't react as he picked up the glass and turned in the direction of the bar. He could hear Kasmir's laughter following him right across the room.


	3. Chapter 3

Kanan wasn't drunk. **  
**

He _had_ been drinking, but there was a wide spectrum between sober and drunk, and he wasn't even close to that end of the scale. Drunk was the room spinning uncontrollably; an inability to keep upright, losing consciousness with the beginnings of your hangover already starting to creep up on you. Drunk was that terrible feeling of whatever you had imbibed over the course of the evening trying to make a second appearance. It was a loss of control, it was saying or doing something that seemed perfectly reasonable, only to remember it the following day and want to punch yourself in the face.

"I'm not drunk," he said.

Kasmir laughed.

To be fair to Kasmir, Kanan had a good idea of how it probably looked, and if their positions were reversed, he would have made the same assumption. He was leaning heavily against the wall where he had fallen. The world around him wasn't actually spinning — though he wasn't entirely certain that he would be able to tell if it was — but he did appear to have lost track of most of it. The wall was nice and solid, and not about to move. He could tell where it was, as long as he just kept touching it.

"Of course. I've never seen you more sober," Kasmir told him. A hand, presumably Kasmir's, grabbed him around the wrist and tugged in an effort to separate him from the wall. Kanan resisted, but while he wasn't _drunk_ , he wasn't completely sober either, and the attempt had taken him off-guard.

"Honestly, I'm not drunk," Kanan insisted. It felt vitally important that Kasmir know that. Kanan had been very proud, once upon a time, of his ability to hold his drink, and that was a thing that never went away, no matter how much else he had now to be proud of instead.

Kasmir laughed and clasped him hard on the shoulder. "Tell that to your spacial awareness," he said.

"No, really. It's just that the alcohol makes it more difficult to sense…" he took a step forward, allowing Kasmir to tug him away from the wall, and reached for the chair that should have been right in front of him. It wasn't there. He stumbled forward another half a step before his fingers made contact with the back of it. "Everything," he said.

Kasmir laughed again. "That's the literal definition of drunk, kid."

Kanan leaned heavily against the chair, pushing down on it rather than forwards so that it didn't slip on the sticky floor of the cantina. The last thing he wanted was to end up down there, among years of accumulated dirt and spillages.

"Well, that's not fair," he said. He hadn't exactly gotten over the loss of his sight, but he felt like he could accept it now. What he wasn't willing to accept was that loss taking away his ability to drink anybody he met under the table. It wasn't something he used often anymore, but it was still a useful skill to have.

"Life's not fair. Have you really not managed to figure that out by now?"

"Might've started to pick up on that, the last seventeen years or so, yeah." Kanan took a deep breath and reached out with the Force. The information he was receiving was foggy, like trying to hear in a noisy room; he was catching snippets of information, some things coming through louder than others, but mostly not the things that he really needed.

In the far corner of the room, two men were about to come to blows. When it happened, he was sure he would be able to sense every blow, but he couldn't decide which way he needed to walk to find the exit, and there was a good chance he was going to fall over someone when he did pick a direction.

But it _wouldn't_ be because he was drunk.

The feeling reminded him, in an uncomfortable way, of those months after his injury; of trying and, more often than not, failing, to make the Force do what he wanted.

Kasmir slung an arm around his shoulders, pulled him away from the chair, and steered him to the left. "Come on, you're not gonna get back to that ship of yours without help."

As much as he hated to admit it, Kasmir was right. So he didn't admit it. Instead, he passively allowed himself to be led out of the cantina and into the cool air of the street.

Hera wasn't going to be happy about this.

* * *

Hera wasn't happy.

Unfortunately, it was one of the few things that the Force was allowing him to sense. Must have been the sheer strength of the emotion.

Kanan felt himself sway slightly, reached for the wall to steady himself and found it absent. Instead, his hand sliced uselessly through the air to his side and slapped against his thigh. He smiled in her general direction, trying to ingratiate himself with her.

"You need to take about a step and a half to your right," Kasmir supplied. Apparently the walk back to the Ghost had helped him get acquainted with the way the blind thing worked, and he seemed to have lost the habit of saying things were 'over there'. It was a start, anyway.

Grateful for the input, Kanan moved cautiously to his right, located the wall, and leaned against it heavily. The walk back through the cold air had done nothing to clear his head.

"Have a good time?" Hera asked. She sounded more than a little irritated at the display.

Kanan nodded, gripped his shirt at the bottom and tugged out any creases in an attempt to lend himself at least a little dignity. "I did, thank you," he said. He heard his words slurring just slightly. "Nice place. Very, uh…"

"Sticky," Kasmir supplied.

Kanan frowned. "What?"

"The tables," Kasmir explained. "And the floor. And the bar."

Kanan nodded. It hadn't been what he had been reaching for, but it would do. "Very sticky," he agreed.

"Oh, don't worry, he's not drunk," Kasmir said. Kanan could hear the grin in his voice.

Kanan felt a stab of irritation from Hera, and something like a smirk from Kasmir, before they both faded away. He turned in Kasmir's approximate direction. "Thanks," he said.

Hera's hands reached for his shoulders and guided him to a nearby seat. He sank into it gratefully. "What's going on?" she asked. She dropped voice to a low whisper; one that there was little doubt Kasmir would still be able to hear, but one that was clearly directed at Kanan alone. "Who is this?"

"Old friend," Kanan explained. "Kasmir, Hera. Hera, Kasmir."

"Hey, not so much of the old," Kasmir said.

"We kind of bumped into each other last night," Kanan added. "We had some catching up to do, and since I knew we were leaving tomorrow, I thought I might not get another chance." He was relieved to note that he was feeling better now that he was back on familiar ground, and sitting down. He reached out with the Force, trying to get a handle on where everybody was. Hera was standing next to him, Kasmir was just opposite. He had sat himself down in another seat.

Hera sighed, but she seemed to accept that. Or maybe she was just glad that he didn't seem quite so drunk now he was sitting down.

"I'm really not drunk," he said. "I know it looks that way, but…"

"Save it," Hera told him. She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. "I'll see you in the morning. Drink some water. Nice to meet you, Kasmir," and with that, she turned and left the room.

Kanan could sense her leave, but she faded from his awareness almost the instant the door closed behind her.

Kasmir chuckled under his breath. "How did a guy like you end up with a woman like that? You must've done something right."

Kanan shrugged. "Just lucky, I guess."

Kasmir laughed. "I'm not sure how lucky you're going to feel in the morning, kid."

He was right. There had definitely been a threat implicit in her goodnight, and he had a feeling that no matter how bad his hangover, he wasn't going to get away with anything tomorrow.

"You're calling me 'kid' again," he muttered. Still, it was better than 'old man', he supposed.

"You are a kid," Kasmir told him. He got to his feet. "You gonna be okay getting yourself into bed, you need me to tuck you in?"

"Hilarious." But he _was_ tired, and the Force still wasn't cooperating with him. Luckily — or unluckily, depending on how he looked at it — the memory of the months after his injury were still fresh, and he still remembered how to find his way around the Ghost without being able to rely on the Force.

Kasmir's feet sounded loudly on the floor as he headed to the door. He stopped before he reached it, and turned around. "Do me a favor?" he said. "When you're trying to get back on your lady's good side tomorrow, throw in a good word for me too, she doesn't strike me as someone you want to cross, and I'd like to come back sometime, maybe meet the rest of the family."

Kanan smiled. "I'll do my best."

"You did well for yourself," Kasmir told him, as he turned to leave again. "Make sure you don't screw it up."

Kanan nodded. He had no intention of doing that.

Kasmir's feet sounded on the floor again as he turned back toward the exit. "I mean it," he said. "Kanan."

The door opened, and then closed, and just like Hera, he was gone.


End file.
